


Ashes to Ashes

by lavenderhaze



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 11:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15929432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderhaze/pseuds/lavenderhaze
Summary: Steve wonders if he will ever get used to the weight of ghosts, the way they take up room and deafen sound.





	Ashes to Ashes

As Steve watches Tony’s plane land in Wakanda, he is struck with a sense of deja-vu. He waits in front of the palace, flanked by Natasha and Okoye, a handful of Dora Milaje standing guard on either side. He had landed here days ago and been met with a very similar scene, King T’Challa surrounded by his most trusted, looking every bit the royalty he was. 

Now he stands in the place of a dead man.

Steve wonders if he will ever get used to the weight of ghosts, the way they take up room and deafen sound.

Tony emerges from the aircraft looking much like he always did. Suit impeccable, hair combed, shoulders set like he carried the weight of the world on them—his armour. 

“Captain. Natasha,” he greets. There is no inflection in his voice, warm or otherwise. He had been more animated when they had been strangers in Germany.

“Stark,” Natasha responds in kind. “This is Okoye, general of the Dora Milaje.” Tony acknowledges her with a nod of his head. Okoye does not move.

“It’s good to see you in one piece,” Steve remarks. Tony’s guarded gaze slides to him and for a split second, Steve sees a flicker of fire in them before the impassivity is once again slammed up.

“Show me where I can work.” Tony directs this to Okoye, forging ahead to walk beside Okoye. Steve clenches all the muscles in his body and relaxes them in one breath the way he had been taught in therapy, trying to ignore the knot in his stomach that had only become more tangled.

 

He likes to think of it as strategic advancement. It is definitely not being a coward, as Natasha tells him over dinner. He just knows Tony would not want to be disturbed so soon after landing.

“The smell of your bullshit is putting me off my food, Steve,” she had responded curtly. Steve rolled his eyes and took another bite of his koshari.

He takes a plate of it with him later on at midnight, when Tony had still yet to emerge from the lab for sustenance.

 

Steve finds him holding a kimoyo bead up against the light. His face looks much paler in the dark, the circles under his eyes starker. 

“I brought you dinner,” he announces, placing the plate down and taking a seat in the chair opposite Tony. He tries not to think about a time when those words sounded like a greeting instead of a warning.

 “These beads are remarkable. What were they called again? Kimono? The design is flawless.” It’s the most emotion Steve had heard from him since he arrived.

“Kimoyo beads. They’re Shuri’s design. I think you’d’ve liked her,” Steve tells him, his chest twisting. He hadn’t known her well, but he remembers the steadiness of her hands as she looked over Vision and the fire in her eyes when she scoffed at their incompetence. She was brilliant, and determined, and much too young for the war they had lost.

Tony says nothing, just continues turning the beads in his fingers. 

“I hear you’ve been up in space,” Steve says eventually.

Grief spasms over Tony’s face, gone so soon that if Steve hadn’t been his teammate for so long he would not have caught it.

Tony schools his expression, carefully placing the beads on the counter.

“Remember that kid I brought with me? Spiderman?”

Yeah, Steve remembers him. Remembers how young he had seemed, even as he held up a thousand-pound crate over his head. Remembers feeling immediate respect for the boy, and disappointment at Stark for dragging a kid who should be stressing out about math homework and pimples to a battle against superheroes.

“He followed me up there,” Tony continues without waiting for a response. “Tried to get him off but he’s a stubborn kid. He stuck to the outside of the UFO and climbed right back in. 

Tony falls silent again, long enough for Steve to feel the awkwardness creeping back in. He opens his mouth to ask, but Tony beats him to it.

“He’s got all these heightened senses—probably kind of like you, except worse. Used to wear welding goggles before I gave him better ones. Apparently even regular light is too strong for him.” Tony grins wryly, a bitter twist of his lips.

Steve doesn’t know what to do with that. He stays quiet.

“Did you feel the ash?” Tony asks after a while. His voice is quiet, his face grim.

“I– no.” He hadn’t been fast enough, had only had time to look into Bucky’s eyes momentarily, see the fear and confusion there, before they were gone.

“It’s cold. You’d think the ashes of a living body would be warm.” Tony’s left hand twitches before balling into fists. “They were ice cold.”

There’s a long silence before Tony speaks again.

“Now that I think about it, that kid, Parker, he’s a lot like you. He’s stubborn when he gets an idea in his head. Never once backs down from a fight. I literally push him off a giant flying doughnut to get him to go home and he just climbs right back in.” Tony snorts wryly.

“He didn’t do badly either, when we were up there. I had told him when I gave him a suit, I told him I wanted him to be better than me.” Tony’s works his throat a few times before continuing. “He was. A hundred times better.”

“I’m sure you were a great mentor to him, Tony,” Steve interjects gently. Tony looks at him then, like he finally remembers someone else was in the room with him.

The carefully crafted composure breaks.

“You know how else the kid was like you?” His voice is hoarse. “He has the same increased healing speed. So he’s got these increased senses, right, and you pair that with the healing speed, you know what you get? You get a kid who feels it when he’s about to disintegrate, with a body that did its damned hardest to keep him together.”

Tony clenches his left hand again, knuckles deadly white.

_Did you feel the ash?_

**Author's Note:**

> I had written this as a means of procrastinating months ago since I had all these complicated, terrible feelings about IW and couldn't focus on my work at all. I told myself I'd come back to it and make it longer and better, but since it's been half a year now and I haven't progressed, I thought it'd be best to just get it out there.


End file.
